


If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life

by PloKoon



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Love Confessions, Love Letters, Married Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, Post-Season/Series 08 Finale, Reunited and It Feels So Good, SO MUCH FLUFF, True Love, abelard and heloise, and hurts just so, and they lived happily ever after, and us too, because it's what they deserve, florian and jonquil, jonsa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:41:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25729852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PloKoon/pseuds/PloKoon
Summary: He’d buried his heart at the sentinel in Winterfell, and there it would remain. But he-Where would he go?-I may or may not have been reading a few to many medieval stories and poems lately. I may or may not have become obsessed with the story of Florian and Jonquil, and that of Abélard and Héloïse-But I refuse tragic endings.This is me letting out my hopelessly romantic side, so fair warning of flowery language and so on.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 33
Kudos: 96





	If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a quote by Oscar Wilde.

He’d buried his heart at the sentinel in Winterfell, and there it would remain. But he-

Where would he go?

It felt like returning to an old dream, the wall, the ice, even as it was weeping. A bad dream, knowing he’d never wake up.

The cold numbed him out, found his neck and settled in his spine, held him upright on their way to Hardhome. He’d sworn himself to Tormund, even if the wildlings didn’t have a system for knighthood. Commander, warden, king, all a lifetime ago. What a joke. Husk of a title to the husk of a man he was.

The thought of staying, even as spring came steadily blooming, in this place that felt of nightmares… There had to be more than this.

He took Ghost for long tours, hunting, breathing in the silence of a world melting away. He’d grow with this, somehow, had no choice as the snow turned to streams and the mountains grew dark and naked in the distance.

But Jon did not want to grow.

Jon wanted to go home and never have to change again. Jon wanted Sansa, and a fire, and to live and die that way.

*

She spent a lot of time in the godswood nowadays, something called her there and made her feel at home. She wasn’t all that sure of what to do with a big, broken, not to mention empty castle-

Didn’t want to wander around like a ghost; She left that job to the sleepers in the crypts.

The pool by the heart tree was warm, never froze, and she would dip her hands into it when they got too cold. It soothed her soul, knowing that some things always remained the same, had done so for countless generations and kept them warm as well. A sense of belonging, less alone now that the others were gone.

She wanted them back, and him, and _them._

In the evenings she would sit by the fire and take out a quill, but the words never came. How do you put emptiness on paper-

Make it fit between the letters?

In the end she wrote his name, wrote it over and over like a spell, calling him home. As if him not knowing how she wanted him there was the problem.

She drew him a rose and inked it blue.

She sent it with a white falcon.

She loved in silence.

*

She would often fall asleep at her desk, and were it not for maester Wolkan she would forget to eat as well. Just read, just work, drown herself in letters to keep her mind busy and not think about, well… Family.

And him, so close, and so far away. Studying the law was better than longing.

But then there were his ravens, and they would paralyze her for hours. Leave her laying on top of her blankets, stare up at the ceiling, listen as the fire died because she would _not_ be disturbed. Kept the tiny scrolls in a tiny tin box beneath her pillow, pulled them out at night.

_The ice is weeping. Keys of May are peeking out from underneath the snow. Stone roses and anemones. Made me think of you._

She’d shut herself in for a day and a half, no rest, trying to respond. In the end it took her a week to form a single sentence.

_I should be so lucky._

Could have sworn the wolves howled harder the nights that followed.

*

All that was left were the stories, but then...

Everything Nan had ever told were stories, and it made them no less true.

_And-so-She-spoke_

_On the third night of the never-sleeping sun_

_The spirits walk the meadows_

_Rise like steam_

_Bloom like Forest Stars_

Midsummer, and white flowers favoured by fireflies.

Midsummer, the most magical day and night of the year.

She opened a window, felt a soft, cold breeze promising to be warmer soon. Began keeping track of the hours of sunshine, and the days were steadily growing longer.

And she found herself wondering about that magic night, about the old gods. Ought she to pray?

What was she going to pray for anyway?

She already knew where he was.

*

_The aurora is getting thinner and further between. Wispy. The water has stopped freezing. There’s white anemones and tussilagos on hills that have been empty for a thousand years. I wish I could show you. There’s a hundred things I wish I would have done._

It took Sansa two days and two nights before she could sleep again.

*

Florian, knight of flowers. To bloom-

Now there was a thought.

The sun grew redder in the evenings and dusk and dawn bluer, longer, called for you to postpone your sleep and stop to think a while. He didn’t mind. It made the mourning easier.

And he loved, so loved, for there was finally space to do so. Watch the stars at night and think about the day she’d found him, and how every time he met her after that she’d found him again. Parts he hadn’t even known he was missing. Parts he wasn’t sure if they existed before she was there. Wondered between adding and mending.

Somewhere to the south she still _was;_ breathing, sleeping, same moon and stars. Wondered if she felt as lost as he did. Wondered if they’d ever be properly found again. He wasn’t made for another love like this. Was she?

If he met her again, would she have children, and a husband who loved her-

Gods knew how easy she was to love.

The thought made him feel his heart missing, but more than that he wished her joy.

Still, that imaginary man he saw beside her, could she love him back like this?

He couldn’t find it in his heart to believe it.

He found no faith at all.

*

_The broken tower is still broken. I will not fix it. There’s something about the ashes that makes me want to keep it, I cannot find it within me to change._

_The crows make me think of you. The ravens made me write you this. There’s more crows now than ever._

He kept the letters in a birch-bark capsule wrapped in leather. He held it all night and could not sleep. He held it all night and did not mourn at all.

He felt her all night and smiled with his eyes, stars twinkling kindly down.

*

She would go into the crypts and search, not knowing quite what for, even if maester Wolkan thought her half-mad.

Who had been queen when Aegon the conqueror had made them kneel? Could she be summoned?

Sansa would undo the Targaryens. Unmake them from the walls and soft earth of Winterfell, make their names disappear.

Unmake a dead woman who stole from her, even in death.

She wished she’d had Old Nan back, had no idea of where she’d gone, it seemed as if nobody did, but for as old as she’d been even when Sansa was a child…

She allowed herself a little cry for the little lady; She allowed herself a long cry for all the stories she’d never hear again.

She thought of Florian, and the Jonquils that bloomed too early by the heart tree. She didn’t pick them.

She brought a heavy fur and a black cloak and slept by the spring.

*

There were a thousand stories of knights too lowly for their ladies, knights who had sworn themselves as guards and whatever they could do to stay close-

And love their lady from afar.

Aemon the dragon knight who had loved queen Naerys, but he was the second son and could not have her. At seventeen he’d joined the golden cloaks.

Ser Ryam Redwyne, who crowned queen Alysanne the Queen of Love and Beauty-

And he wore a golden cloak, too.

Jon wore black, and Jon was much too far away from his queen, but Jon loved like she was right there by his side.

The aurora was almost gone.

The Jonquils were shy, but they were there, brave.

He wrote to her about flowers. He wrote like a knight in the stories, knowing he was lost, and found, and bound to her forever.

*

_Last night I slept by the Heart Tree. I thought the mist was faeries dancing on the surface of the pool when I woke up, the sun is so early now. I wanted to tell someone, perhaps the silly will make you smile, I’ll imagine it for now._

_I’m not sure queens are allowed to be silly. There’s so many things I’m unsure of. When it gets too bad I think of you, and when it’s good too._

_You’re all the good things._

_I think about you all the time._

*

He wondered about her. For her, where had it begun?

It was easy for him, as soon as he’d seen her; Being given a second chance had made him lack boundaries, even as he’d kept it to himself.

A man, and a woman, and fires, so many fires-

The good, healing kind.

He’d left a world in ashes for it.

He’d known, and he’d sacrificed, and he’d done it all the same, thought it as he said goodbye, looked back one last time-

_I sacrifice._

_For her-_

_Fire and Blood._

_Even if it kills me._

Many times he wished it had.

*

_I should have, but I never told you, about that night at Castle Black. The one where you smiled. The one where you wore my cloak and smiled, and you felt like the reason I’d come back altogether._

_How I loved you then._

_And how well I love you now._

_And how I wish I could see you wake to that mist and see that smile again, and conjure faeries for you. If there are giants, why not?_

_And there’s always been magic to you._

*

He’d never said it, she’d never dared-

Love seemed such a strange word as to how they were together. A lot of the time they’d said nothing at all, but there’d been these little whispers, secret tells...

The twitch of his brow that told her she needed to get him out of a situation, that he desperately wanted to leave. Be saved.

The way he opened his hands when they were alone, silent reveal of a need to be cared for. She wondered if he knew, and she had tried to love, wordlessly. Gods knew she had tried all she could-

_Don’t leave me._

_I need you._

_Please-_

_I love you but I’m not allowed to say,_

_Not allowed to shatter._

There was always too much at stake.

_How I loved you then._

_And how well I love you now._

And how well she’d love him always, always, always-

And now they were allowed to say.

And now he was a hundred miles away.

*

_I’m wearing the cloak as I write, it’s easier to smile when I do._

_Think of me as wearing it always, how I wear it waiting for you._

_And the smile that I gave, it’s still yours. And I keep it here for you, too._

_I send this with a kiss._

_It’s yours, everything,_

_Yours-_

_And I love, love you._

*

Spring had come, and it had been silent much too long. All the aurora was gone; That and the grief.

The Jonquils had given way to shy, wild roses, and he sat in the wilderness, making up his mind. No more. No more roses without her. He picked one.

He found Tormund by the water with seashells in his hands, his daughters gifting him mother of pearl and bits of chipped blue. Tormund kept them all. He pierced and threaded and hung them like veils on his windeyes, told the girls stories as the thin pearl whispered in the wind.

Jon wanted that for Tormund, and Jon wanted that for himself. Jon wanted to undo Sansa's braids in the evening as she spoke of Florian and Jonquil, of the first men and the children of the forest-

Never of dragons, and never of ice again.

Braids undone, her hair, like a veil, and he’d kiss her forever beneath it.

Jon wanted to wake up at night from a child that could not sleep, hold them and care until the cry went away. Watch Sansa rest. Kiss her brow, for himself, not to wake her.

Jon and Tormund said goodbye, and he knew he would see him again. Jon counted his blessings and left.

*

It had been a heavy truth, to know herself capable of a love that never looked back-

Know she could have spent a lifetime loving him. It was worse knowing she would still be doing so, even if the restlessness settled with the spring.

She found herself wanting, namelessly, once again at a loss for words. It lived in the in-betweens and pauses and soft haze between sleep and wake. As if she could feel him. As if no name he had possessed could do him justice.

_Snow,_ she thought. In a way, come winter, that way he would always return, and then-

There'd been a dove, of all things. A blue dove sent from Castle Black with hope on it's tiny wings, it was still so young. Sometimes she forgot that she was too. Sometimes she felt at one with the Heart Tree, ancient. Constant.

_I'm coming home._

Hope in her wings; She had barely slept since.

*

_Mistrial._

_Brandon Stark,_ _Protector of the Realm_

*

She waited, and she wondered where he was; He was taking much too long. She worried, but not like before.

She thought of Nan again, of heroes long dead and gone, of spells and summer and long cold nights-

And of Midsummer, the most magical day and night of the year.

Old Nan had told her that if a woman wanted to see the spirit of the man who would love her, she were to find a well and walk around it seven times, backwards. Put seven kinds of wild flowers beneath her pillow and dream of the love of her life.

As a child, Sansa had done this many times, midsummer or not; Had never dreamt of anything at all, and seen no ghosts either.

But Nan was Nan, and Sansa thought she might try again. She wondered if the weirwood might help her. She chose the spring by the heart tree to try.

She wore soft, white linen, walked barefoot on the earth, backwards at midnight-

The people should just know what kind of queen they had elected. She thought that if her mother had ever done this, Sansa would probably have loved her yet more, but she would never know. Sansa walked backwards and saw the mist from the pool begin to rise.

Sansa picked seven flowers and put them by the heart tree, put on a mended black cloak and fell asleep. 

She dreamt of Ghost. Sansa dreamt that Ghost was standing on the other side of the pool, waiting for her to see him. She woke up, feeling watched.

A ghost, no-

_Ghost._

Red eyes, and he came so softly toward her. Tired, he lay down beside her, _fell asleep._ It felt almost rude.

And it took her a moment to come out of the haze, to realize what it meant he was there. Listened for a good minute for _him,_ unable to move. Kept a hand on Ghost as if to keep him real, and then-

Even before she heard him, she felt him. Pulling at her being and she struggled to stand, body still heavy from sleep. She reached for the tree, but her skirts-

And then there was him.

Then there was him, shadow and mist that cleared and parted and _made him real._ She couldn’t move. What if he really was a ghost? But the wolf to her side was real, she touched him again to be sure. Soft, warm. Asleep and at peace already.

Jon looked at her as if she’d been otherworldly. Did he know she had called for him?

“Home.” Said it as if it was the only word she knew.

And he walked around the pool, armourless, cloakless, windbrushed hair and back straight. Rose in his hand, silver in his eyes.

“Yes.”

“Are-” she tried to stand but began tripping over her skirts, and a white root, and a black cloak, _and he caught her_ “-are you the love of my life?”

He held her there. He dropped the rose and it fell, kissed the soft ground.

“I should be so lucky.”

*

There was a boy, and a girl, and a boy and a girl again-

And then there was Arya, sometimes Gendry, and another boy and girl, again.

And for now there was one he _didn’t know,_ and they would not _let him in._ They never did, and he paced down the halls, servant girls biting their cheeks as they passed him, smiling sweetly at his expense.

You would think that a man had learned not to pace a fifth time, but Jon would not, _could not,_ even with Sam and Gilly in there, but then-

Blue eyes, dark hair; A face like Arya’s, but she smiled like her mother.

“Up.” Now that he _could_ do.

“Like a bird.”

“Like a _crow.”_

Lyanna was four, brave, and liked to sing. Sansa had made her wings from raven feathers that she wore almost all of the time, to the degree that they’d had to get her a backless chair so she would eat dinner without fussing too much.

“Not a raven?” Up on his shoulders she went, and Jon began, once more, to pace.

“I can’t.”

“And why is that?” Lyanna brushed his hair so that it fell into his eyes but he knew better than to try and correct it.

“Because mom is a crow.”

“Is she now?” And for the first time in three hours, Jon smiled without worry. “I thought she was a phoenix.” Lyanna shrugged.

“Mom is a crow when she wears her cloak.”

*

It was taking longer than it should, Jon could feel it. Or perhaps the other times things had been unusually easy? Six hours was a lot for her, even if he knew it wasn’t unusual. Was it because it was winter?

Jon found no peace, his peace was busy.

_Mom is a crow when she wears her cloak._

He went back to their chambers, opened a heavy oak chest full of memories; Their wedding chest. Found the dress with the wolf bit, stitches ever so neat. He still liked the wolf bit very much, but he was there for his own-

Jon never felt more wolf than when he wore the cloak she’d made him.

It was good, and it was worn, and it was mended with a love he’d never thought was made for him. He found his birch bark capsule and a tiny tin box, and a pressed rose kept in the story of Florian and Jonquil.

Why was it taking so long? And where was the black cloak?

No.

He would see her.

Since when had tradition been their thing?

*

They let him in.

He didn't know if it was a good or a bad sign, but they did. It was quiet, but not like the other times. It lacked the lightness, and it smelled of blood. Not the same kind of blood either.

It felt as if he was facing an invisible enemy and he'd never been more terrified in his life.

She breathed, and it was weak, and she was colder than he'd ever known her to be before. He'd brought the black cloak. He wrapped her in it, carefully, baby with her.

"She's going to be alright." Gilly.

"She's lost a lot of blood but she _will_ be fine." Sam. Jon nodded.

"Thank you." And then they were alone, him and her, and the little one.

And for the first time in almost fifteen years, Jon prayed.

*

It was the first one to really look like him, a boy, the first with grey eyes and dark hair. Still with his mother’s smile, just like the rest.

Jon had woken up many times to hold this child, had hushed him and sang him back to sleep. Told Sansa to rest, kissed her when he came back to their bed.

Jon had undone her braids and hid beneath her veil as she drew invisible flowers on his face-

Had smiled there, and wept there, and kissed her well beyond a thousand times.

Jon had a stack of seashells by his window, and the mother of pearl would catch the sun in the morning, and he would see Tormund and tell tall tales. Never of dragons, and never of ice. Never.

Jon held his son in his arms and listened to the halls of Winterfell fill with laughter and bickering and the patient sigh of the love of his life-

His wife.

His wife with a crown of iron and smile like golden sunshine.

And Jon had a thousand fires, and his Sansa, and his children-

And that was the way they lived.

And that was the way that they lived.

*


End file.
